American
by windthroughtheleaves
Summary: Emeline was expelled from her school in America after a series of incidents. Her brave front was false, her cunning a game, and she's been sorted into Ravenclaw. And her biggest problem isn't Umbridge... (Okay, so it might be. But I can't spoil it.)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Ravenclaw**

Emeline stared at the guy behind the desk. His beard was long and white; the dirty white that colored the snow when it packed onto the tires of her dad's truck as he drove through the dirty streets of the town they had used to live in. It could have tucked into his belt, but instead, it was tangled in the buckle, making it obvious that he had hurried to get dressed before their late-night meeting to discuss her placement at his school.

Ema was thirteen, and while she had finished her third year at the school she had gone to last year, she had only touched on some of the curriculum of the first and second years, and touche don some of the things that they learned in the fifth and sixth years here at Hogwarts. Her education would be considered unusually light, normally, but the headmaster here had thought that the level of her accomplishment was on a genius level, to be able to put together potions the way she did, and to understand Arithmancy on the level that she had been taught.

He had no comments on her failings in Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and seemingly ignored the medical reports that had been filled out concerning major accidents she had caused in Transfiguration, Herbology, and Astronomy, as well as the grade on History of Magic.

Ema was not an easy student to teach. She was fidgety, and frequently drummed on the table or her cauldron with either her fingers or her wand, fiddling with it to the point that it was now thinner and about a centimeter shorter than it had been when she'd bought it. Her teachers had tried various ways of trying to get her to calm down, but none had worked. Finally, after she had accidentally caused a few particularly disruptive incidents (especially one during Transfiguration, in which she had turned everyone, including herself, into goldfish), she had been expelled.

Dumbledore ignored her flaws, seeing her as a young witch with great potential, where others saw a child on her way to becoming a troublemaker.

She hated him for it.

If only he saw her the way her old headmaster had. He would have given a short speech that implied that Ema was dangerous, and that would have resulted in an independence and a protective shield against people, which Ema loved. People made her more uncomfortable than small animals did; they couldn't be trained to listen to what people told them to do.

Ema supposed she couldn't really say anything, because as much as she disliked people for it, she hated authority herself, ignoring whatever commands had been given. That was most likely why she had been so hopeless at Charms and Transfiguration; the sets of commands that one used to put into action the spells they wished to use were not something she had ever been allowed to experiment with. Potions, on the other hand, had been similar to the muggle chemistry kits that she had set up as a child.

While she came from a family of half-bloods, her brother Roland had been a squib, and had therefore introduced her to many muggle objects and devices.

She herself had gone to a muggle elementary school before going to Salem Witches' Institute (which, contrary to some beliefs, also accepted boys), in Massachusetts, which, while across the country from her home, was the nearest wizarding school.

And now she had been shipped off to England, desperate to continue her education.

She felt like a wimp, following everyone's instructions. And Ema hated feeling like a wimp.

Dumbledore, who had been scanning over the letter that detailed her last school experience, rose, taking the Sorting Hat from its shelf and placing it on the desk. Still reading, he began mumbling.

"Entire class turned to goldfish... teacher melded with boggart, reportedly painful transformations... head through the ceiling... turkey teapot terrorized students for three months..."

Ema winced. She had never realized that what she had done would sound so bad on paper. Nobody had died, and they'd gotten the teacher and the boggart separated eventually. Besides, it was Neil's fault for being afraid of Professor Gillian, and Professor Gillian's fault for not being clear on the pronunciation of the spell. To her "Riddikulus" sound a lot like, well, whatever she had said.

Dumbledore lifted the hat from the desk, looking up from the parchment that he'd been reading from and gesturing for her to sit on the stool in the corner.

The stool was uncomfortably short, meant for eleven or twelve year olds instead of fourteen year olds, not to mention tall thirteen year olds. If there was one thing Ema wished was different, it was her height, which made her stand out in crowds; it was an interesting subject, apparently.

And then there was that voice in her head.

_Well, you're strong willed, for sure. That's a Gryffindor quality, but you're also smart, which is Ravenclaw. Not Hufflepuff for you, you might help people, but you don't like them, do you? Unpredictable, apparently, except you love the thrill that comes with doing something wrong and getting away with it. Cunning, though there is that time when Max Montgomery asked you -_

'That's not important,' Ema quickly thought, cutting off the hat as it assessed her.

_But you are not a pure-blood, nor are you ambitious, which is valued in Slytherin, and Ravenclaws can be cunning as well._

_Well then, I think we'll go with - _"Ravenclaw,"

The hat didn't shout, but instead spoke at a tone that almost could have been a whisper. Was he embarrassed, to sort her into a house that obviously wasn't expected to be very interesting? Had the hat hoped for Gryffindor or Slytherin, only to find a boring girl with a brave front and an intelligent mind?

She decided to snort to herself. 'Yep, real exciting,' she thought to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Ema stared at the door, shifting the satchel that hung from her shoulder.

"Can you repeat that?" she asked, and she could have sworn that she'd heard the door sigh.

"What has four letters and yet has three..." the door said in the same tone Ema's mother used when she was fed up with either Ema or Roland.

"Yeah," Ema nodded, "What has four letters and yet is made up of three. I've heard that one before."

The door swung open, revealing a circular room that was decorated in blue with bronze latches on the windows and twinkling pieces of metal that she believed were bronze as well glittering from a high ceiling. The wall to the far north and south had sections carved out of the stone that were filled with books, the west side with a window that let Ema have a good view of the grounds of her new school, and the east side with a bronze eagle above the door she had just come through. Next to each of the bookshelves were dark wooden doors that Ema assumed lead to the dormitories.

"You're new."

Ema tilted her head.

"Yep. Who're you?" She asked, turning towards the voice.

"Vivienne Scott. You?"

Ema grinned. "Emeline Moore, Ema, I guess."

"Right. So you're in Ravenclaw? I'd have thought that any kid who got expelled would have been in some other house, Slytherin or Gryffindor, maybe, all the braver and more daring witches and wizards go there." Vivienne remarked, trying to start a conversation.

Ema frowned. Not only had the goldfish incident been an accident, but Principal Whethers had always been a bit paranoid. If a teacher so much as knocked on his office door, he would summon resignation papers that he kept in a tray on his desk and begin filling out their name.

"It was an accident, and Principal Whethers is a paranoid little person. My friend Lindsay used to imagine that it was because he was once stepped on by a giant, because when he came back from Tanner, he _was_ shorter than he was when he left," Ema muttered, referencing the building in the US where magical creatures were given a sanctuary.

"Tanner?" Vivienne asked, tilting her head and raising her eyebrows.

"Yeah, Tanner Hall, it's this huge building that's basically in the middle of nowhere and it's protected by all sorts of charms. They have magical creatures living there, but it's not like a zoo or anything, because you have to go through a whole big deal with forms to visit one of them, and only to ask questions for a news report or to actually free a house elf or something," Ema rambled, "but that's only happened once, and the house elf in question had been at Tanner for forty years after it escaped from its house, then the granddaughter of the house elf's old master came because her dad and granddad had both died, and she didn't like the idea of keeping a house elf. Gave the house elf a closet of her brother's clothes, since she'd saved them for ten years and had no reason to keep them anymore."

Vivienne coughed, ending Ema's speech.

"I expect dinner will be starting soon," she said, and beckoned for Ema to follow as she opened the common room door and clattered down the steps to the corridor that connected the Ravenclaw tower to the rest of the school.

* * *

The Great Hall was definitely not anything close to what Ema had expected to see. At Salem Institute, there were six tables lined up near the edges of the room with benches along either side, with another large table that overflowed with food in the center. Pitchers were placed randomly along each table and were filled with various beverages that were kept so cold that they steamed, which nobody could drink right away. Everybody was mixed together, even though everything else was done according to which group you were part of and which part of the campus you lived on.

At Hogwarts, there were four tables, lined up so that they were parallel to the longer walls of the room. The teachers sat at a table on the far end of the room, and each table was clearly meant for one house and that house only. Starting at Ema's left, there was a table with a red banner, then one with a blue banner, then a yellow banner, and finally a green banner. Vivienne had sat down at the table under the blue banner, and Ema followed her.

"This is our table?" she questioned, watching Vivienne take pieces of chicken and spoonfuls of a stew of some sort, and then some green beans.

Vivienne nodded, already having filled her mouth, and set down her fork to take some potato from a dish that another student had finished with, putting one potato on her own plate and another on Ema's.

Ema stared at the potato, as if her brain had left her head, before slowly and robotically poking at it with her fork.

And then, like someone had flipped a switch, she began to eat.

Dinner lasted for another half-hour, before the students left in flocks, headed up to the common rooms to finish their homework and get to bed.

Ema followed Vivienne through the north door, up the steps, and into a circular stone room with blue drapes around the window, the simple beds pushed up against the wall. Only one was made, the other three with wrinkled sheets hastily folded at the head of the bed.

Recognizing the chest at the foot of the first bed, Ema made her way past Vivienne and two other girls and flopped onto the bed.

"So, Ema," the first girl started, "that is your name, right?"

"Uh-huh" Ema responded, "Wha's yours?"

"Mina," she said, "and that's Cynthia."

She gestured towards the red haired girl who was quietly reading passages from a textbook to herself.

"The pronunciation of these spells is trivial because..." Cynthia's voice faded, too quiet to hear, "but the motion performed with a wand is considered to be a rather general matter..."

Mina sighed. "She's very absorbed in her work, I'm afraid, and sometimes she'll stay up until three in the morning, studying."

Thankfully, Cynthia didn't stay awake until three, as all four girls were asleep before ten.


End file.
